Question: The Cleveland Press and The Plain Dealer, the two daily newspapers in Cleveland, Ohio, were part of a multiemployer bargaining group that had signed a collective bargaining agreement with the Cleveland Typographical Union, Local 53. The contract stated that each covered employee was entitled to "a regular full-time job for the remainder of his working life." When the Cleveland Press went out of business, eighty-nine former Press employees sued the parent company, E. W. Scripps Company, and The Plain Dealer to enforce the lifetime employment guarantee in their collective bargaining agreement.
In addition to their Section 301 action, the plaintiffs also charged that the two defendants had conspired to create a daily newspaper monopoly in the city of Cleveland. The defendants replied, among other defenses, that the plaintiffs had no standing to sue on this second basis. Should the federal judge enforce the contract guarantee of lifetime jobs? If you say yes, what kind of a remedy should the judge fashion? What evidence do you see to support the plaintiffs' antitrust allegation? If defendants violated the Sherman Act, what impact should this have on their case? See Province v. Cleveland Press Publishing Co. [787 F.2d 1047 (6th Cir. 1986)].